Local elections and sex/gender/trans issues

MangyInseam are you really trying to convince anyone that Boris Johnson hasn't said (and stood by) a whole truckload of incredibly racist shit? Have you forgotten "watermelon smiles"? I can't even bring myself to type out everything else he's said over the years, it's so horrible.

It is not on record that BJ thinks black people have lower IQs.

He did compare women in burqas to letterboxes, although quite a lot of feminists also are not keen on burqas and say they are sexist and demeaning - he did however think they should not be banned.

Parties do investigate when they don't do well. There are all kinds of research avenues open to them in this regard.

After the last election there was a deep dive into what went wrong by Labour and identity politics was part of the response.

The problem is they don't care.

I hadn't realised until I got to the polling station that we had 2 votes!

The seat on our local authority I voted independent but the town council only had a Tory or a Labour candidate so I spoiled my ballot and wrote "respect my sex" across the two boxes.

I gritted my teeth and voted Tory. I feel grubby. I always vote tactically but it has never come to this before.

I was cheered up by DH getting into conversation with candidates outside the town hall. When asked how he was going to vote,he said "I'm a single issue voter and I bet you can't guess what the issue is." They couldn't. (We are in rural Scotland and DH looks like a stereotypical ex-rugby player) He told them: the safety of women and girls. They were rather surprised. The Tory chummily said "ah you're going to vote the right way then?" And DH asked for a peg for his nose 😁

Spoiled my ballot. First time ever. Looked like a crap turnout, too.

I couldn’t vote for any of them and frankly could not be arsed to walk to the polling booth to write “Keir doesn’t know what a woman is” on my ballot paper. Only three choices in my ward - Labour, LibDem, Con. Local Tory is a twat, LibDem no way, and not one of the Labour candidates in the whole borough answered the questions or even acknowledged the email. Fuck them. They deserve to lose. I don’t even know why I’m still paying my LP direct debit.

I've voted labour because you have to see beyond one issue. Conservatives gave fucked women over in many other ways.

It really doesn't matter who anyone votes for.

By the time of the next general election, the Elections Bill (and all the rest) will have ensured the Tories can't be unseated from power for as long as there is a UK.

But hey, at least transwomen won't be women. Or they will, depending on what Boris's mouth decides to say that week. But the fascists can know they voted with their conscience.

Democracy is so twentieth century.

Don't forget to fill in the Woman's Place UK Google form with the responses from candidates. I've just completed for the Libs and Greens who did NOT respond. I wrote "No response, emailed twice". I think reporting all these answers either gained by email or on the door will make an interesting document.
Form is near the bottom of this page fill in one form for each cadidate.
womansplaceuk.org/2022/03/08/wpuk-questions-for-councillors/

The 'gender based stuff' doesn't come from the Tories

Lovelyricepudding it was bloody Maria Miller, for the Tories, who kicked off the gender debate by recommending self-ID.

My local Labour candidate, and the two other Labour women who knocked on my door (one just now asking if I'd voted) all said they respected the right to single-sex spaces, which made it very easy for me to vote Labour locally. I want these women to get elected and therefore to be listened to within the party.

She's not canvassing. She's doing Get the Vote out. That means you are encouraging people to vote, not persuading them who to vote for. I volunteered to her who I had voted for and why. She did not ask me. She may have knocked on my door as I had emailed the Conservatives to ask them their view on sex based rights, so I would have been seen as a potential conservative voter. But it wasn't canvassing. It was Get the Vote Out.

@RaininginDarling

Was shocking (but not) seeing all the Alliance, People Before Profit & Sinn Féin MLAs & most of the SDLP ones ignoring Standing For Women Northern Ireland asking them the Staniland question. Charlotte Carson is a brave one for not just breaking ranks & saying “no”, but doing so in such a public a public way. She’d a tweet yesterday where she said:

Just had email APOLOGETICALLY asking my position on abortion rights. Do not apologise for exercising your democratic right AND DUTY to find out how your candidates would vote on issues. MLAs, MPS, Councillors are elected to serve us - not 2 be feared or revered!
Only time I’m glad people in GB are generally so abysmal in terms of their knowledge & understanding of NI - means she’s (so far…) getting less of a battering than [female] politicians on the mainland do when they dare suggest that women have a right to their own spaces (& that woman has a narrow meaning determined by biology not belief).
The work the women of Northern Ireland have been doing to try to protect their rights is incredible.

Am quite anxiously waiting to see what will happen at Stormont & if predictions are right about NI being about to have its first ever Sinner FM. Am desperately hoping with all I have that the Assembly will actually stay sitting & get on with massive amounts of stuff they need to; rather than somehow confusing themselves with a crêche & thinking it’s grand to refuse to govern because they can’t play nicely with the other children politicians.

@DomesticatedZombie
Am genuinely very pleased my post helped you. Employing emotional blackmail is always grim, but this is grim AND sexist. I mean, the suffragettes (as in the WSPU) were all about the emotional blackmail (to be fair, that was their least problematic strategy) but I still don’t think they’d be on board with “ZOMG JUST PUT A TICK IN ONE OF THE BOXES FFS”. The whole point was that women could be trusted to use their votes properly - & voting against your interests &/or conscience cannot be said to be doing that. Spoiling your ballot is using your voice. Weird some people seem so opposed to that around here 🤨

Maybe more postal votes? We always do ours that way. DD and DS voted for the first time today at the poling station, as didn't request a postal vote in time.

Just voted, wrote 'respect my sex' across all the names would have written the entire slogan but got self conscious at the amount of scribbling I was doing!
When I got back home I realised I'd been so fired up that none of the names/parties had registered with me.
Polling Station seemed very quiet even for a local election. I wonder if the tory voters (very tory area) are also staying home?

I did, along with 'sex not gender' and 'Labour losing women'. I also wrote 'NONE OF THEM' across the candidates so my message was clear.

Can people stop already with the vote shaming, particularly from the Left. It's up to everyone to vote as they see fit, according to their beliefs. For me, it's a single issue and I will vote for the only party that seems to take any interest at all in women's rights.

@Floisme
Ah, I see thank you very much :)

Away to do that now.

I thought canvassing was illegal on actual voting day ?

The activities on polling day are to encourage your supporters (whom you've already identified) to go out and vote: Distributing 'Vote Today!' cards, giving lifts to the polling station etc. This was the purpose of canvassing - not to get into arguments but to find out who and where your support was so you could remind them to vote.

At least that was what happened back in the day when I had a political home.

I wrote respect my sex if you want my x on my ballot. I wonder how many other women did the same.